Other Worlds Than These
by MidnightRun42
Summary: There are points in our lives where everything can be different, where everything can change, but it rarely does. In the life of Uzumaki Naruto, there is a very specific reason for that.
1. Chapter 1: If You Only Walk Long Enough

_"We can never be gods, after all-but we can become something less than human with frightening ease."_  
― N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

 **-ooo-**

He has always known there were other worlds than his own, other realities, and the knowing was both a gift and a curse. He's felt them always, trembling at the edge of his perception, like a mirage on the horizon. Always just a tantalizing glimpse of a place barely imagined, sometimes passing familiar, but never quite the same.

When he was a young, flush with his power and finally able to peer through the veil into these other worlds to see these places and lives in truth, he took a sort of twisted pleasure from looking in on them. From watching the fear and hate and joy of those lives play out again and again. It wasn't until he was older, much older, with an eternity at his back and and an endless future sprawled at his feet, that he truly understood the danger those lives represented. The madness of allowing those flickering, fleeting glimpses to survive and thrive in such ways that that boy might grow to become something like him: a threat, a danger to his plans, to his world.

Certainly it wasn't ever likely to come to pass, he had thought in the beginning, when the idea first occurred to him long before any evidence of such a possibility was presented. The few incidental demonstrations of such abilities were surely anomalies more than indicators of a problem or a true reason for concern. After all, the boy was almost always soft, distracted, too caught up in the tiny dramas of his daily life to perceive of a drama unfolding on an infinitely larger scale around him. He almost always grew up kind or good or in devotion to some cause or other. He was never born with immense or a threatening degree of raw talent and power, never born with an innate sense of purpose that drove him towards a life beyond the petty concerns of the flesh. No, this boy was always born with only the barest glimmer of potential and though it was often augmented by the power of the Kyuubi, that power was most often sealed off within him, dormant and inaccessible within him. No, he was most often just a boy. Just a helpless child with a curse planted in his heart and a seal written across his skin. Nothing to worry over.

As the boy grew older, his purpose, his drive, always came from something outside of himself. Sometimes that cause was the village in which he was born. Often that cause was a boy. Most often the last scion of the Uchiha clan, a child who was just as alone and hurt as he, with a few crucial differences. The Uchiha was a destiny that boy couldn't ever seem to escape in those lives where that child featured prominently. Tragedy followed him like a loyal pet and always became a snare to catch and hold him fast. A snare that he was never able to escape on his own, that only pulled him deeper the more he struggled against it. Uzumaki Naruto spent lifetime after lifetime trying to free him of it and, sometimes, he even succeeded. More often though they went down together, unable to escape the hell the Uchiha had made for himself, but unwilling, unable to abandon each other, so they never traveled alone into the dark.

Occasionally it was another boy who earned the full measure his devotion. After all, there were so many mistreated, haunted, dangerous boys around him: the caged bird, the lonely monster, the expressionless assassin. All were boys he helped in some way more often than not and sometimes, after, they would became more than something so simple as friends or allies. Sometimes they became his strong right arm or the guard at his back or lovers or partners and sometimes those relationships helped put the world to rights and, just as frequently it seemed, they led only to wrack and ruin. The perils of those boys came as often from without as they did from the boys themselves as powerful men did so resent the loss of a useful tool.

There were girls as well, of course, as he was only consistent in his inconsistency from world to world and life to life. But his lives with them were often simpler. Less fraught with peril and despair and sudden and immediate death. The girls always seemed as complicated as the boys, but they carried less tragedy in their bones and greater joy. They could make him happy, and often did, but they could never quite understand the core of him, the experiences that had formed him in his earliest years. What it was to be hated, to be so desperately lonely, to want things so badly it gnawed a hole to the very heart of you and how that emptiness was something almost impossible to fill. They could love him and he could love them, adore them, worship them in his way, but they would never know what it was like to be as he had been. It didn't mean he couldn't be happy with them, but happy doesn't always been content. Love can't heal all wounds, after all, sometimes it just plasters over them, concealing them from view, but leaving the hollow, aching empty space beneath.

In some lives he grew old and older still with a woman at his side. Sometimes they were married, more often not. Sometimes they had children and grandchildren, but not in every life and rarely by his choosing though always with his consent. He was good with other people's children, brilliant in some cases, but rarely seemed to know what to do with his own. Sometimes he found happiness and satisfaction in these lives. When he didn't, he typically smiled and shoved any hint of discontent down deep, choosing to lose it amidst the shuffle and bustle of paperwork and bureaucracy. Too afraid of breaking his word to seek solace elsewhere or break things off even when that might have been the kinder and more decent decision for them both.

And maybe that said all that needed to be said about the boy right there.

Always, beneath the circumstances of his life, he was driven by an obsession with keeping his word, with living his life by a standard of working hard and never giving up and always fighting for what he believed in. That was the one constant in every version of him, whether it was loving parents, a doting irresponsible godfather, his father's student or no one at all that had raised the boy from baby to man. Whether he was the village pariah or the village savior or lived out his formative years on the road between inns and taverns and nights spent lying out under the stars. Whether he had friends who needed him, someone who loved him, a family, a home, he was always guided by the same principles and it certainly seemed as if this boy would always be too distracted to allow him to make much of himself in terms of power. Yet, still, more often than not, he found that the boy would grow in strength by leaps and bounds when he least expected it. When those he loved were threatened or when they died and left him alone with a desire for vengeance or just an empty hole left longing for that lost connection, for that which might make him whole again.

In those circumstances, he would become a force to be reckoned with, blossoming in the face of adversity, training as a sage, piercing worlds and slipping through by accident or at will. There were, of course, others who could slip through the worlds as well, but they were not truly a danger and certainly not worthy of lingering concern. He did not fear the Kaguya or the Uchiha on their own. They were simply old powers, unable to stand against him and too frequently lost within their own madness, unable or unwilling to care about worlds outside their own except as they might serve their own purposes. They cared nothing about the injustices or structure of the worlds through which they traipsed. He could destroy them as easily as he could draw breath, crushing them beneath the force of their own arrogance and never give it a second thought.

The boy was a more difficult prospect. He could be selfish, all men could, but more often he saw to the heart, to the truth of things. And, against all odds, versions of that boy had begun to pass into his world and almost always identified him as a threat immediately and always went straight for his throat. Because even that boy was capable of understanding that there are some enemies you reason with and some you must simply hope you're able to destroy before they have the opportunity to destroy you. They were the most violent, feral versions of the boy. The versions ruled by passion and hate, dangerous and violent and free and rarely alone. The Uchiha boy and the lonely monster were frequent companions of these invaders, these interlopers who slid into his world, into his paradise as if it could belong to them, as if they could own it for themselves if only they could wrest it from the grasp of its sole occupant. Those boys, compelled by the demons that dwelled within them, had come perilously close to succeeding in these endeavors more than once. But they were mostly instinct with little reason left to them and while that made them dangerous, it rarely made them clever. He had not lost a battle to them and he did not intend to, but they still had done more damage than he was comfortable with and he still bore scars he owed to that boy and his companions.

It was those scars that caused him to reflect upon his situation at length. If these dangerous, feral versions could come so close to victory with little to depend upon besides power and viciousness, what did this say about what versions with a little more finesse and a reason might be capable of? He didn't care for the possibilities such thoughts brought to mind. So he turned his attention back to those other worlds this time with deadly intent. Those worlds seemed so nearly infinite in number, but still he put thought to how he might eliminate them. Snuff the problem out at its root rather than wait for the day some version of that boy would part the veil and decimate everything that made this world perfect and bright and _his_.

It didn't take long to discover that he could crush the paths that led that boy to him. Destroy them one by one until all that was left of him were weak, happy, doddering old men who lacked the will and passion to seek other worlds. Men who would be satisfied with their lot and never seek to question how or why it had taken the shape it had. He didn't have to banish every world, he just needed to keep the boy from continuing down troublesome paths unfettered. It would take time, so much time, to sort through those lives and find those that might threaten him. But if there was one thing he had in abundance, it was time.

For that's what his world, his brilliant, pristine world was: an existence beyond the reach of time, beyond the touch of men, beyond the reach of mere mortals. No one could be allowed to rob him of this perfect, peaceful place alone at the center of the universe.

No one.

Not even some cheap imitation with his face and form.


	2. Chapter 2: Roads Diverging

_"Honestly, if you're given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don't say 'what kind of tea?"_  
― Neil Gaiman

 **-ooo-**

It doesn't take him long to realize that the elimination of worlds will be an ongoing concern.

As he discovers after several attempts that every time he eliminates one possibility, one world, another springs up to take its place. Some worlds were capable of creating seemingly endless deviations, new worlds in their own right that seemed to sprout for a single moment of indecision or a slight change in circumstances. He knew if he wasn't careful, cautious, he might spend all his long life pruning these worlds only to see new, more threatening versions rise in their place. So, instead, he was slowly developing a system of peering into a world and gauging the circumstances and either snuffing it out if it seemed a definite danger or marking it be given a more through review at a later time. It's still incredibly time-consuming, but it also seems to be reasonably effective. This method of pruning the world tree rather than simply lighting the entire thing on fire as he is quite certain would not end well for him and inevitably attract the wrong sort of attention.

So, instead, continues his slow and careful massacre of potential, examining each world carefully before moving on to the next.

World #57

In this world, his story begins something like this...

A boy is born to loving parents, wanted and adored, on a cool and uneventful day in early October. Though his father is the Hokage and his mother is a Jinchūriki, he has a very normal, unassuming childhood all things considered. Full of skinned knees and friends and an overprotective mother and a busy father and they love him more than anything and in being cherished by his parents he misses out on a friendship that might have changed his life.

Or at least that seems as if it might be the case...

Until the former third Hokage passes away quite unexpectedly in his sleep.

Until almost the entire Uchiha clan is slaughtered.

Until the Fourth Hokage, the boy's father, is murdered in his office late one hot summer night in July.

Until Shimura Danzo becomes the Fifth Hokage and _everything_ changes for both of them.

 ** _Noted. World #57. Ignore for now._**

 _World #65_

There's a boy and his mother dies when he's just a baby. His father might have died too, but his mother insisted that he live and when the former third Hokage arrived to help use the seal he has little choice but to concede to her demand.

So Kushina dies and Naruto survives with half the Kyuubi's power sealed within him. For months after that terrible night, Namikaze Minato mourns the loss of both his lover and the whole village mourns the loss of the third Hokage, but life goes on and Minato has a beautiful son to raise. Of course, he isn't the most confident man when it comes to children and while he is enthusiastic about the task he's also a little nervous about it and pretty sure he's doing everything wrong. A suspicion that only seems confirmed by how often his beautiful golden-haired son cries though his friends and his former student, who shows up often during those first few weeks to lend support and leaves just as quickly to avoid the possibility of being roped into babysitting or changing diapers, assure him that crying is just what babies do.

He manages to juggle his duties as Hokage in addition to being a single parent, but it's a lot of work and it doesn't take him long at all to realize that either his son or his village are going to suffer if he doesn't find a better way to balance all of his duties. He's pretty sure that just not sleeping much and spending a lot of time popping soldier pills and taking meetings while carrying his sleeping son in a sling across his chest isn't going to cut it as a long-term plan. So, it's actually kind of fortunate that he first hears about a disturbing rumor that's been circulating around the village when he does three weeks after the Kyuubi's attack. It makes it incredibly easy to decide who he wants to rely on in the weeks and months and years to come.

He's never been particularly close to the Uchihas, but he thinks well enough of the few he does know well. He's always been on good terms with Fugaku, who he'd chosen as leader of the Military Police Force because he was a fair and practical man with little patience for injustice. His wife, Mikoto, had been a close friend of Kushina's so she'd spent a good deal of time at their little house over the years and he figured he knew her well enough to be allowed to ask a favor. It helped, of course, that their having two sons of their own gave him the perfect excuse to show up at their door whenever something happened with Naruto that he wasn't sure how to handle.

Which was often, if he were honest.

 _Really_ often.

Especially during the first couple of months.

He had started reading the baby books the day after Naruto was born. He would have read them sooner, but Kushina had said she was reading them and she'd just give him the overview so he wouldn't worry, but she... well. There hadn't been a chance for that. She'd probably been right about that though, since they never seemed to help except to make him paranoid that the diaper rash might be a UTI in disguise or something.

He tried once or twice asking his neighbors for advice when the books were being less than helpful, but they'd all been even less than thrilled with the prospect of helping him or- as he was beginning to suspect was more likely- his son out. He didn't like the way they looked at him and he was pretty sure his position within the village was the only thing that was keeping anyone from saying or doing anything that was outright rude. He'd really hoped they'd be more accepting and less eager to just see his son as just a vessel for the Kyuubi as some had seen Kushina. Still, people changed. People changed all the time and he had no doubt he'd be able to wear them down sooner or later, but in order to keep Naruto safe and eliminate the rumors that the Uchiha could not be trusted, he decided to entrust his son's safety to them instead. Uchiha Madara might have been responsible for the Kyuubi's attack on the village and for both Hiruzen and Kushina's deaths, but he didn't think for a moment that one bad egg spoiled the batch. Fugaku Uchiha's family at least had never treated Kushina with anything but respect and for that alone he was willing to put his faith in them.

It wasn't a decision he ever had cause to regret.

"Really?" Fugaku said, mildly exasperated when he opened the door at half past three in the morning to find the Hokage on his porch with his crying two-year-old son bundled over his shoulder. When he saw the panicked look on Minato's face though, he stepped back and waved him inside without further comment.

"Something is wrong with the seal, but I can't really work on it while he's so upset," Minato sighed, holding his son tightly as if he could banish his distress just by sheer force of will. "I..."

"Father?" A soft voice called and Itachi slipped into the room on near-silent feet, his gaze going immediately to the sobbing toddler on Minato's shoulder. "Is something wrong?"

Fugaku managed to avoid sighing in relief, but it was a close thing. Itachi had always been a light sleeper and he was far better with Naruto and Sasuke than Fugaku himself had ever been. "Itachi, Naruto is a bit under the weather. Would you mind looking after him while his father and I see about preparing a treatment?"

Itachi was already reaching up for Naruto before he'd even finished speaking and, for his part, Naruto released his grip on his father easily enough, wrapping his arms around Itachi's neck and shoulders instead and he even seemed to quiet down a bit as Itachi began speaking to him softly as he moved away.

Minato watched them go with a wry smile, "I wish I were half that good with him. Your son is really exceptional in many ways."

"I completely agree," Fugaku replied, smiling with pride at his son's back before turning to lead the way back to his study. "I always dreamed that he might enter the ANBU when he graduated, however, I often wonder now if that would truly be the best thing for him. Perhaps he is better suited to being an Academy Instructor, while it isn't as prestigious a position, I believe he might be happier there. Mikoto certainly thinks so."

Minato made a soft hum that sounded like agreement, "Your son is a young man of the rarest sort. He is both extraordinarily talented and infinitely patient and that would certainly make him an invaluable addition to the Academy. Nothing would thrill me more, in fact, but I quite understand it isn't a glamorous assignment. I am certain, however, that with your support Itachi will be able to make the choice that is truly right for him. The most important thing is, of course, Itachi's happiness."

Fugaku snorted as he pushed open the door to the study, "As always, you have the most polite, roundabout and quite frankly _irritating_ way of speaking your mind. I'm quite sure you're right and the clan as a whole won't be the least bit supportive of the idea of two of the most gifted young men in this family becoming instructors, but I like to think I still have enough pull within the clan that I can push the idea through. This is our village and if we concern ourselves only with the prestige of the clan over what is good for the village as whole, we'll be no better than Madara and I have no desire that our clan should be associated with the sort of man who would create a situation where his entire clan might be blamed and ostracized for his transgressions."

He wasn't surprised that, when he turned to face him, Minato was beaming at him as if he'd exceeded each and every one of his expectations. It always made him feel like he was twelve and being patted on the head by an instructor after he'd done particularly well on a test. Which was, of course, completely ridiculous because Minato was eight years younger than he was, even if he was the Hokage. He scowled at his friend, "Oh, wipe that look off you face, I wasn't saying any of that for your benefit. Honestly. Do you have a copy of the seal?"

"Of course," Minato replied pulling a scroll from his pocket and opening it across the desk. His expression only grew serious again as he leaned over it and gestured to two of the symbols. "I think this is the problem. There's sort of an inherent weakness in how the original seal is constructed so it fluctuates just a bit when he has a fever. I mean, he doesn't get sick all that often, because of the Kyuubi, but every once in a while I think the chakra flow gets a little out of whack and that causes a weakening of the seal along here. I mean, if I'd done the seal, I'd probably have used a secondary locking protocol that made half the chakra inaccessible, but since I didn't..."

"Hm, I see what you mean. Hold on, I'm fairly certain I have a scroll or two about similar seal work that might give us somewhere to start. Were you thinking of adding in a secondary locking protocol now or just firming up the balance?"

"Oh, I was thinking both if we could manage it."

"Then you should really go make some tea while I find those scrolls. It's going to be a long night."

 ** _Noted. World #65. Ignore for now._**

 _World #67_

There's a boy and his father dies when he's just a baby. His mother might have died too, but his father and the third Hokage managed to save her life. In order to do so, they have to transfer the Kyuubi to a new host and so they seal half his power within their infant son and the other half follows the boy's father into death.

Kushina is devastated by the loss of her husband, but she has her son and he is beautiful and perfect and everything she dreamed he would be and he looks so much like Minato that it would break her heart to look at him if it didn't also bring her so much joy. The village, of course, is devastated by the loss of their leader and, she tries unsuccessfully to not by irritated by the way the villagers treat her and her son and even the Uchihas, whose only crime as far as she can tell, is being related to Uchiha Madara and daring to not be obviously present during the defense against the Kyuubi. She showed her support for them by continuing to visit Mikoto as often as she ever had making good on their promise that Sasuke and Naruto should be friends. For their part, Mikoto and her husband never wavered in how they treated them over the years even when she could see how frustrated Fugaku was growing with the villagers' accusations and the Third's apparent refusal to put a stop to it.

When the Uchiha family is slaughtered leaving only Sasuke alive, she doesn't so much offer to take him in as she marched into the Hokage's office and demanded that she be allowed to take her godson home with her immediately. She hadn't cried yet and, god, she wants to because it's horrible and it hurts. They were her friends, her only true friends, and their loss leaves another hole in her heart alongside the hole Minato had left years before. But if there's one thing Minato's death taught her it's that there was a time for tears and a time for action. And then, for the sake her son, and now, for the sake of Mikoto's son, she couldn't afford to start crying until she'd done everything that needed to be done.

Fortunately the Third Hokage doesn't put up much more than a token fight, probably suspecting that she wasn't going to back down. She might not be a Jinchūriki anymore, but she sure as hell wasn't a pushover any more now than she'd ever been. She had absolutely no problem whatsoever telling him and every other one of those stuffed shirt idiots on the council how things were going to be and if that asshole Danzo said one damn thing against it she was going to punch him into next week. Besides, even though Uchiha Sasuke wasn't _technically_ her godson and she didn't _technically_ have any more claim to him than anyone else, the Uchihas were a famously secretive bunch and she knows they won't have a lick of proof that she's being anything but absolutely truthful about this. She's always thought of him that way anyway so it wasn't really even that much of a lie. Heck, she'd always thought of both Sasuke and Itachi that way really.

Itachi. She didn't know _what_ the hell to make of the rumor that it had been Itachi that had killed them all, but even if it was true- which she doubted- she didn't buy for a hot second that that was all there was to it. Itachi had been such a gentle child. He was probably capable of something like that from a talent standpoint, Itachi had always been uniquely gifted in almost everything he put his mind to, but there was a great difference between being able to do something and having the will to do it. She'd often felt sorry for him because she thought that genius could be as much a burden as it was a gift sometimes. In recent years, he'd taken to coming by her house between missions. He rarely spoke and when he did it was only about mundane things. Mostly he just sat and watched his brother and Naruto train in the backyard while he sipped politely at the tea she made him. His presence was peaceful and she was never sorry for the company, but she couldn't help but feel like he was using her kitchen as a hideaway from his life. She'd regretted now never asking why.

She wished she'd sat him down that last time, a few weeks ago, when he'd sat in her kitchen watching Naruto and Sasuke training in the backyard and he'd seemed so very, very tired. He never spoke to them during these times she was actually pretty sure that Sasuke never even realized that he was there at all. He just sat and watched and then thanked her for the tea with this funny, wry little smile that always seemed kind of sad. She should have asked and she almost had, but she hadn't wanted to add to his troubles assuming, mistakenly obviously, that he would confide in her in his own time.

No, she wouldn't ever believe that boy would kill almost his entire family for no reason. And the fact that the good people of Konoha were so eager to lay the blame at his feet just made her more certain than ever that she was right. After all, she knew better than most that there was nothing Konoha loved more than an easy answer to a complicated question.

She pushed thoughts of Itachi out of her mind for the moment. There was nothing she could do for him now, maybe in the future, but definitely not now. Still, even if she couldn't help Itachi, she could do something for Sasuke at least. Because she loved those boys and she loved their mother and like hell was Mikoto's youngest son going to grow up without a home and people who loved him. And, of course, she and Naruto already loved him and he had spent half his life at their house as it was so it wasn't as if it would even make that much of a difference really. Sure, Sasuke was a bit of a sullen little shit sometimes, but she was pretty sure all kids were at some point or other. And no matter what he was going to need people around him who cared about him otherwise he was going to drown in his grief and guilt and that wasn't happening on her watch. She'd stomp anyone who dared try to keep him from them and they'd better all damn well believe it.

 _...Divergence Point..._

 _World #68_

There is a young man in her window and she's on her feet with a kunai in her hand before she has even fully registered that he's badly wounded and obviously exhausted or that he's wearing a hitai-ate with the insignia of Sunagakure imprinted upon it.

"I apologize for the late hour," he says softly and he does sound sorry, but that isn't what has her lowering her weapon to her side. No, that has nothing to do with the young man crouched on her windowsill and everything to do with the wide-eyed child in his arms.

He's small and probably something close to her own son's age, with dark circles around his dark eyes and a shock of bright red hair that's just a little darker than her own, maybe, but it was a little difficult to tell in the moonlight. He looks confused and exhausted and he's covered with blood though she can't see any wounds on him.

"What do you want?" She asked finally, because there was nothing about this that made sense at first blush, but... she had a terrible feeling that their quiet life was about to get incredibly complicated.

Again.

 _...Divergence Point..._

 _World #69_

"I want you to help him," the man replied, slipping off the windowsill and into the room and setting the boy down gently. "I'm sorry, I know this is... an imposition, but... he's a Jinchūriki and he... he can't control it, but it isn't his fault. It really _isn't_ his fault." He stumbles and slumps back against the wall, pressing a hand against the blood wound on his stomach, as the boy makes a soft distressed noise, "Please?"

"Oh, dammit," Kushina murmured, slapping the kunai down on the dresser and stomping across the room to flip on the bedroom light. "Naruto! Sasuke! Get in here and give Mama a hand!"

Pausing only to heft a small, heavy box out of the dresser, she strode back across the room towards the bleeding man. There was a strange hissing sound as she approached and she could see there was a thin layer of sand spread all across the floor and it shifted and flowed across the wood and the rugs like a living thing. The hiss of it seemed a little like the rattle of a snake and it set her nerves on edge and she realized that she was going need to deal with this before it became a problem. Because it was absolutely going to be a problem. She stopped and turned a narrow-eyed glance on the boy, "Listen up, kiddo. I'm going against my better judgment here and I want to help your..." She sighed and turned back towards the bleeding man who'd brought the boy. "What are you to him? Guardian? Friend? Not his father, obviously, if this is who I think it is."

"Uncle," the man answered, gasping a little and now that she was this close Kushina was a little surprised he'd made it all the way from Sand Village with a wound like that. Though maybe that had happened later. The kid did seem awfully excitable which made her a little reluctant to put Naruto and Sasuke in charge of him, but it would probably be a bigger problem not to.

"Okay, uncle then. I'm sorry for your loss, I heard about what happened and his father is a real piece of work. I don't like people who hurt their kids. So, that's one of the only reasons why I'm not kicking you both right back out that window. I have my own worries, just like anybody, but I'm going to at least try to help you, okay?" She turned her gaze back to the little redhead gripping his teddy bear as if his life depended on it. "I'm going to try to help him, but I can't do that if you hurt me because you're scared, okay? I understand everything is really scary right now, but you've got to try to be brave for us. Your uncle brought you to me because he loves you very much and I'm going to try and keep him from dying. I'm bringing my sons in here to keep you company..." She turned the glare towards the doorway irritated to find that it was still child-free. "SASUKE! NARUTO! UP, UP, UP! GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW!"

"Mom! It's really late and... who's that?" Naruto commented as he stumbled in a few moments later, moving from sleepy indignation to wide-eyed curiosity in about two seconds flat. He stopped dead in the doorway and made a little grunting sound as Sasuke no doubt ran into the back of him. Sasuke's pale face peered around Naruto's shoulder at the newcomers with wide eyes and he looked a little panicked. Damn. She hadn't even thought about how Sasuke would react to bleeding people in the house. Damn, she wasn't going to be winning that parent of the year award this year either. Ah, well, live and learn and if he kept on about this avenger nonsense he was gonna need to be less squeamish anyway, so maybe this would be good for him.

"I need you boys to take..." She glanced back at Gaara, touching a gentle hand to his. The sand hissed around him, agitated, but he didn't pull away from the contact. Of course, she was pretty sure she wasn't actually quite touching him either as his skin had a gritty texture that only sand really did. "What's your name, sweetie?"

The boy stared at her silently for a long moment before mumbling, "Gaara."

"Okay, great. Gaara, please go with Naruto and Sasuke. They're going to take you in the kitchen and make you some hot cocoa. They don't want to hurt you, so I need you to remember that even if they move fast or something, okay? I'm trusting you with them and your uncle is trusting them with you, so you all need to try to be on your very best behavior and look out for each other. In fact, Naruto is just like you, that is he's a Jinchūriki just like you. So if you want to talk to him about it, that's okay."

"Whoa! You're a Jinchūriki too? That's great! You're just like me. I've never met another one before," Naruto commented, bounding forward and grabbing Gaara's hand. The sand hissed and curled around their hands, around their feet, as Naruto tugged the redhead off in the direction of the kitchen without the faintest hint of concern. "This is so cool. Sasuke! Isn't it cool?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, having apparently lost his fear in the face of Naruto being Naruto, "Whatever."

But Kushina noticed happily that he trudged off with them in the direction of the kitchen anyway. Once the boys were gone she turned her attention back to the man bleeding out on her floor. "You know nothing I do for you now will be enough, right?"

He nodded, quick and certain, leaning his head back against the wall. "I know, but if you could tell Gaara I just left I'd... I'd appreciate it."

Kushina shook her head sadly, "Sorry, but if you want me to take care of him, I'm not going to start off with a lie. He's the one who did that?"

"He didn't realize it was me. He doesn't have great control over it, either the sand or the demon."

Kushina snorted, wrinkling her nose at the comment, "Well, of course not. I don't know what the hell you people expected. As if pregnancy isn't tough enough without adding a demon into the mix. Your Kazekage deserves a swift kick in the nuts at the very least."

"I happen to agree with you," Gaara's uncle replied, wincing, his breathing labored. "I hate him for what he did to my sister."

"So, how soon can I expect half of Suna to come banging on my door?"

"I covered my tracks as well as I could under the circumstances, but it won't be long. A few hours, a day at most."

"Well, that's enough time for you to say your good-byes and for me to find a good place to hide him. Let's get you patched up well enough that you can put some distance between us at least. You've probably got maybe two-three hours tops if you pop a soldier pill."

"I'll make it count."

"What's your name, by the way?"

"Yashamaru."

"Pretty name. Sorry we're not going to have a chance to know each other better, Yashamaru."

He smiled, "Yeah, me too. I'd heard a lot of stories about you. They don't really do you justice."

"Stories rarely do anyone justice, I find," Kushina replied, slapping a couple of chakra-infused pads against the wound before she started wrapping a roll of gauze around his chest to hold it in place.

 ** _Noted. World #69. Ignore for now._**

 _World #72_

There's a boy and his parents die when he's just a baby. All they leave behind for him to remember them by is a fox demon sealed within him and a village that fears and despises him for the demon in his belly and the Hokage they have lost. But he's lucky. Luckier than he might have been, better off than the other orphans made that day who had no one willing to take them in. Fortunately, this boy has his godfather. His godfather is a writer and a bit of a pervert, but he's also a good and boisterous man who cares for the boy in a gruff and delighted way as if ever day with him is a gift. His godfather, of course, knows nothing about babies and he makes many mistakes, but he always means well and he takes the boy away with him which he knows is the best thing he can do despite the Third Hokage's assurances that they both will always have a home in Konoha. Jiraiya doesn't have the heart to tell him that he's wrong. That he is willfully blind to the way many of the villagers look at the baby Jiraiya has taken to carrying in a sling across his chest. Far better that Naruto be raised far away from this place that hates and fears him.

So, they travel. Near and far afield and always far, far away from people who might have only looked at him and seen a vessel instead of a boy. The boy is raised as much by his godfather as he is by good-natured whores and stingy innkeepers, weary tavern owners and cheerful serving girls. He loves everyone they meet and everywhere they go, finding pieces of home in the strangest of places he is a precocious, confident, good-natured child with a wide grin, a wicked sense of humor and a keen mind for pranks. They travel from place to place and the boy never complains, never asks to stay in one place, he seems to enjoy their nomadic lifestyle and if he's lonely he never complains though sometimes Jiraiya wonders whether he's doing the right thing by him as he rarely has much time to befriend kids his own age.

 _...Divergence Point..._

 _World #77_

Then, one day, not long after Naruto's sixth birthday, they're somewhere between back there and somewhere else in the middle of the Land of Rice Fields when they run across a boy in a lonely valley. They have no way of knowing that this boy was meant to become another man's student, another man's victim. He is pale and splattered with blood and looks like he hasn't eaten in days. His feet are bare, scratched and blistered, but still he keeps moving forward like he's being driven along by habit rather than any true desire, his steps stumbling and he's so intent on the action that he barely even glances at them. Just enough to let them know he knows they're there and nothing about him gives the slightest indication that he might want assistance. If anything, his entire being seems to radiate 'fuck off' as if it's all he knows.

Unfortunately or fortunately, Naruto has never been great at reading social cues. And even when he does he's a national champion at ignoring them.

"Whoa, hey, are you okay?" Naruto asks, darting in front of the boy and completely disregarding all Jiraiya's half-hearted lessons on stranger danger and looking before you leap. He doesn't even seem to notice the blood as he stops dead in front of the kid and reaches up with one small hand to touch the boy's red-splattered face. Jiraiya is actually kind of surprised that he doesn't lose the hand for his trouble, but he doesn't. Instead the boy actually stops, his green eyes still not quite focusing on the child in front of him. He wavers on his feet, exhaustion making him so clumsy that only the press of Naruto's hand against his forehead seems to keep him tipping forward and falling face-first into the dirt.

"They're all dead," he whispered after several moments. It's not really an answer, but Naruto nodded as if this explained everything anyway before slipping slim, sun-kissed arms around the boy to steady him or maybe he just wanted to hug the kid. Naruto had always been kind of a hugger. Still, the boy probably had at least two years, maybe twenty centimeters and at least ten kilos on him, but Naruto held him with ease.

Jiraiya watches it all with wary eyes. He's seen those marks before in battle, can't help but recognize the boy for what he is. He's definitely member of the Kaguya clean based on his coloring, one of those bloodthirsty berserker's that would kill anything in their path, that lived for battle, but… he wondered. He looked at this boy and he wondered. There was something fragile, lost and terribly breakable about him. He'd be the first to admit that he wasn't the world's best judge of character, but this kid looked like he'd lose a fight with a wet paper sack and he knew enough about blood spatter to guess that he hadn't actually been in the middle of whatever battle had put that blood across his face and the dusty white of his clothes.

Naruto turned pleading eyes to him intently as he gripped the Kaguya boy tighter. Jiraiya noticed that, while the kid certainly didn't make any move to return the embrace, he didn't shake it off either. "We'll help you, okay? We won't let anything happen to you." He said it to the boy against his shoulder, but he meant it as much as a question for his guardian as anything else.

Jiraiya sighed looking at the boy who was as much his son as anyone ever would be and in that moment, he could see so much of Minato of him the it made his heart ache. There was no way to mistake that unfathomable kindness that helped shape the man his former student had become, the man who had given his life so his son could live. Of course, he could also see a fair bit of Kushina in there as well as Naruto's expression made it clear that this was less a request and more of a demand in a question's clothing. The only demand Naruto had ever made of him, if he were honest. It wasn't like he wanted another mouth to feed, but he'd always been a soft touch when it came to children and he couldn't just leave the kid there. Of course, he had a feeling that Naruto wasn't gonna be on board with the idea of just leaving him at the next village either. "Yeah, yeah. What's your name?"

"…Kimimaro," the boy answers softly, shuddering as if he wants to reject the arms holding him, but doesn't quite know how.

They sit down under a tree for lunch and to treat and wrap Kimimaro's feet and the few other incidental injuries he has. Jiraiya considers treating the boy's wounds himself, but he sees the way the kid flinches when he gets too close and leaves it to Naruto to do. Naruto isn't great at it, he uses too much ointment and the bandages hang a little too loose, but he's enthusiastic and he keeps up a steady stream of chatter that seems to put the boy at ease. They offer him something to eat, but he just shakes his head hard as if the very idea of food is anathema. With some coaxing and cajoling from Naruto he reluctantly drinks some water so when it's time to go he looks a little bit less like he's going to just tip over and die any second. He still looks awful, of course, just a little more awake and a little less half-dead.

When they're back up and walking down the road together, the boy asks why they're helping him and Naruto tells him that orphans need to stick together. Which, Jiraiya supposes, is a true enough. As they continue on their way down that long and dusty road, Jiraiya glances around, certain for a moment that he felt an all too familiar flare of chakra. He wonders what business Orochimaru has in the Land of Rice Fields, but he doesn't linger long on the thought. He has children to look after and he wants to get them to the next village before nightfall, the last thing he needs is to get distracted by a man he used to know. He gave up on saving him a long time ago, after all.

 ** _Noted. World #77. Ignore for now._**

 _World #78_

One day, not long after Naruto's sixth birthday, they head out to sea, making their way to the Land of Water over the next few weeks. Jiraiya has never cared much for the Land of Water as the mist has always made it a mite bit dreary for his tastes, but inspiration strikes where it might and he's had an idea percolating in his head for weeks for a book set in the grim forests of the Land of Water. Plus, he picked up a side-job making a delivery to the Village of Mist so this is a good opportunity to make a little extra money while still staying true to his art. They're traveling through some town not too far from the Village of Mist when he realizes Naruto is no longer beside him. By the time he manages to spot him through the thick damp fog that obscures the streets, Naruto is on his knees beside a girl with long dark hair whose sitting tucked between a couple of garbage bins. She's pale and dirty and has that lean, hungry look all street kids get after a few weeks or months spent fighting tooth and nail for every scrap of food, surviving against tremendous odds in a world that cares nothing for them. He can't help but notice that the girl is clutching the large broad roll they'd just bought that was meant to be a good part of their supper in her blackened fingers and taking too-big bites. She doesn't look the least bit warmed or impressed by the offering or by Naruto who is chattering away at her feet.

"...So, that's why we're here. Why are you out here alone? Are you lost? Are you hurt?"

"What's it to you?" The boy who Naruto originally thought was a girl murmurs, his hair falling forward to conceal his face. The words are said around mouthfuls of sweet beard and barely intelligible. He doesn't say anything more than that, but he doesn't have to. Naruto loves his godfather, but he knows what it is to be lonely. He flips around and lays down on his back so he can look up into the boy's face. The boy looks down at him, a little surprised, but the barest ghost of a smile tugs at his lips.

"You looked really sad," Naruto commented, smiling up at him. He wondered if he'd have ended up on the streets like this if the old pervert hadn't been around to look after him. He didn't remember Konoha, where he'd been born according to Ero-sennin, but sometimes when he'd had too much to drink he'd talk about it and he never had anything nice to say. So he thought maybe he would have. That he'd have looked this sad and been so hungry and really, really lonely too. "Don't you have anywhere to go?"

"No. Not anymore," the boy answered after a long pause and his eyes still looked dead and empty. It occurs to him that while that hint of a smile had been nice, it hadn't really touched his eyes at all. Those eyes that looked like they'd seen everything terrible in the whole wide world and they didn't expect to ever see anything good ever again. It made Naruto feel sad, but it also made him really mad.

"What's your name?"

The boy blinks a lot, like he's really surprised or maybe like he isn't sure what Naruto is asking or why. When he answers, he says the word uncertainly like he isn't sure that this isn't a trap or a trick or maybe it's just been a while since anyone has bothered to ask him, "Haku."

"It's nice to meet you, Haku. I'm Naruto. You should come along with us." Naruto finds himself saying, because no one should be all alone with nowhere to go back to. "If you want to, you should come with us."

Jiraiya rolls his eyes, close enough now to hear Naruto's last comment. He knows he should be annoyed that the kid doesn't even bother to look at him before he volunteers them both as a new family for some random brat. Not that he'd have said no, probably, Naruto could use the company and while he didn't really want the extra expense of a second brat, it would make it easier to have someone to entertain the one he already had while he was working. Not that they were going to make a habit of this. He wasn't some traveling halfway house for misplaced orphans after all. But... this one reminded him a little of Konan and thinking about those kids still stung a little. Of course, then again, the kid could rob them blind on the first night and take off, but... he'd just have to keep an eye on...her? Huh. He assessed the girl again as Naruto helped her to her feet and he realized he'd probably made a mistake on the gender front. That probably wasn't a girl after all... probably.

Girl or boy, the kid gives him the side eye as if they find him just as suspect as he finds them and he tries valiantly not to be offended by that look, he doesn't quite manage it, but he tries.

 ** _Noted. World #78. Ignore for now._**

This time his story begins something like this...

There's a boy and his parents die when he's just a baby.

There's no one willing to take him in because they know the burden he carries and no one wants to bear it for him or with him. He is raised in an orphanage alongside others who lost their parents and families in the violence of that day until he's just barely old enough to care for himself and then he's immediately turned out and left to his own devices. He's given a small two-room apartment near the edge of town and a monthly stipend to spend on groceries and clothes and the like.

No one shows him how to do laundry, how to use the stove, how to deal with the graffiti people spray on his door and over his windows. He learns everything through trial and error unsure what else to do or who else to ask because the landlord is mean and the woman from the orphanage slammed the door in his face the one time he tried to go ask her about it. So he burns himself and his food and everything he owns is orange because he didn't understand about washing the white things separate, but that's okay because he's always liked that color. Sometimes he cries himself to sleep, but more often he's angry, so angry, because he doesn't understand why they hate him, but he knows they do.

One day he sees a boy all by himself at the edge of a pier and he thinks they're just the same.

He wonders if maybe, some day, he and that boy will be friends.

 _...Divergence Point..._

 _World #83_

He sees Sasuke moving and he somehow manages to move faster, not much, but a little and that's enough. The needles hit him in a dozen different places and they hurt, god, they hurt, but it's okay… he's okay…

Because Sasuke is looking at him with wide red eyes and he's safe and alive, even if it's just for the moment, and that's all that matters.

 _...Divergence Point..._

 _World #84_

They kiss for the second time, the first real time, in the Forest of Death while Sakura is sleeping a few feet away. Sasuke feels like hell warmed over and the bite on his neck aches fiercely. Naruto is curled around him, helping him fight through the worst of the pain, helping him to stay focused and calm, whether he realizes it or not. He's whispering soft nonsense things and insults and it's like it always is with Naruto talking too much about nothing and everything and pulling at him and making him care about things he doesn't want to care about.

He isn't even sure why he does it. Maybe just because he wants him to shut up. Maybe just because he's there and so close and believes in him like no one has since he was small. Since he was small with a family around him, with a brother he thought loved him, a brother who eventually left him behind with only despair and death for company. And he can maybe admit that he's lonely. That he's been lonely for a really long time and Naruto knows what it is to be lonely too. He's known that since that day at the water's edge even if he didn't let himself think of it often.

So he turns and he leans forward and presses his lips to those of his teammate. He kind of expects Naruto will sputter and yell and push him away and carry on, as loud and annoying as ever. That this will be a mistake he'll blame on the bite or exhaustion and Sakura will wake up and she'll yell at Naruto, even though it won't be his fault, and everything will just be normal. As normal as it ever is. Instead, Naruto stills completely and he doesn't pull away at all. Eventually it becomes a little weirder, a little more awkward because this isn't what he thought would happen and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do now. So he pulls back, releasing a shaky breath he hadn't even realized he was holding in and then Naruto pushes his forward and they kiss for a third time and it should still be awkward, because it's nothing but the press of lips, but it isn't. It's warm instead. Warm and nice and… he thinks maybe this one... this one is the first real kiss and his neck hurts and he feels awful, but... but... he's also pretty sure he's never going to want to kiss anyone else as long as he lives.

 ** _World #84. Eliminated._**

He doesn't kiss him like he thinks maybe he means to. Instead he falls fast asleep between one moment and the next with Naruto's voice a soft comfort in his ears.

His sleep is restless and filled with nightmares.

 _...Divergence Point..._

 _World #86_

They're both standing in the water facing each other, the spray from the waterfall soaking the air and them, though neither of them really feels it.

"…What did you say?" Sasuke rasped, sure he'd heard him wrong. Because Naruto would never say something like that. Not even Naruto was that _stupid_.

"I said, I'll go with you, moron," Naruto spat, glaring at him with those red, red eyes. Those eyes that weren't quite human. "If you want to go so damn bad, if you need to go so bad then at least let me go with you. You need someone to watch your back. You can't trust those guys, right? You don't even trust _us_ half the time, asshole."

He wants to say no. He wants to say no because he wants to swear off such attachments because they make him weak, weak, weak. And even if he didn't, and he does, but even if he didn't... Naruto has his dream of being Hokage and a missing nin can never be the leader of a village. "You're the moron, dead last. How are you going to be Hokage if you become a missing nin?"

Naruto waved his arms around emphatically like he could wave away Sasuke's doubts and his own if he just kept flapping them about. "I don't know! There. You happy? I'll... I'll just figure it out later! It's fine. It'll be _fine_. I'll just come back and make them see that I made the right choice. I said, I'd bring you back and I don't go back on my word."

"But you won't be bringing me back! You'll be coming with me to…"

"I'll bring you back _eventually_! If you don't wanna come back now then I'll go with you and just bring you back home after. You'll learn whatever you can from that total asshole, but then I'll bring you home before he can take your body. That should be fine with you, right?"

"You're an idiot!"

Then Naruto was there beside him, so quickly that it was like he hadn't moved so much as appeared there, uncomfortably close, his fingers fisted in Sasuke's sweat-soaked shirt. "That's not a no," he growls and he's grinning wide and fierce.

And it wasn't. It wasn't a 'no' at all because some traitorous part of him, the part that was still the boy he had been before his clan was murdered, before his brother betrayed him, before everything in his life had gone to hell, wanted his friend, his _best_ and _only_ friend with him. He wasn't afraid to go alone, he _wasn't_ , but he didn't _want_ to. He didn't _want_ to leave him behind, not really.

"You're an _idiot_ ," he repeats and exhaustion makes it tough to think, to reason with him beyond that. The curse mark burning against his shoulder throbs, still pushing him to fight, to win. He can feel that power sweeping through him, over him, bursting across his face and his arms and down his back and it's agony he feels something burst from his back. He slumps forward and Naruto catches him and it's like coming home.

 ** _Noted. World #86. Ignore for now._**

 _World #87_

His eyes flutter open to find Sasuke hovering above him, the barest inch away and he can't remember why that might be or what happened or why it looks like Sasuke's crying, but it does. Thunder rumbles overhead and he stares up into Sasuke's unfocused eyes and he looks beaten even though Naruto is one the one lying on his back. "Hey," he manages and the word almost disappears underneath a series of deep, wet, wrenching coughs.

In response, Sasuke just closes his eyes like he's trying to block him out or maybe dig up the will to get up and just leave now while Naruto is still too messed up to follow. He's pretty sure he could get on his feet if he had to, if he really, really had to, but if Sasuke can run and he has to settle for limping then he's gonna have a heck of a time catching up. So he decides to try something else and without letting himself think too deeply about it he reaches out, instinctive and fast. Even that small movement is enough to send pain shooting through his chest, but he doesn't care about that, not now, not yet, because their faces are wet and he just wants him to stay.

Sasuke allows himself to be drawn down as if by gravity until their lips meet through the warmth and the damp. They're wet and taste a little like salt and a little like blood, but mostly just like rainwater. Naruto darts his tongue out to lick along the thin seam of Sasuke's lips, to clear away the water there and he feels a shudder run through him. Then Sasuke's lips part and he can taste him beneath the rainwater and copper sharp taste of blood as his tongue dips inside and it's like nothing he's ever done or imagined. Not because it's kissing, really kissing, but because it's _Sasuke_. It's Sasuke and he's been a part of him for years in one way or another and he's never had a word for what they really are to each other that has ever managed to capture everything. Sure, they were strangers and they were friends and brothers and rivals and now they were... this too.

He rises up at the same time Sasuke's weight drops down against him, his mouth sliding open a little more as Naruto thrusts his tongue inside, groaning half because it feels really good and half because the initial impact hurts like hell since he's pretty sure Sasuke, the jerk, actually managed to punch a hole in him with that last Chidori. Still, even knowing that and even with Sasuke's weight pressing painfully, awkwardly against the wounds he'd put there, the pain is distant, bearable enough that he can keep going a little longer. He can keep going forever maybe, because Sasuke is kissing him back. It's clumsy and sloppy and neither of them really have the faintest idea what they're doing so he's pretty sure that it isn't very good, but it's enough.

They're still like that, locked in an awkward, kind of slobbery, obviously painful embrace when Kakashi arrives.

He'd been running scenario after scenario in his head as he ran, chasing after them and wishing someone had come and gotten him sooner. Instead he's been following the scent trail they left behind them with Pakkun's help, but it's been slow going and so he's had plenty of time to imagine each and every terrible, worst case scenario. Naruto could be dead, was the first thing that sprang to mind. He'd felt the Kyuubi's chakra flare up and then die out so that was a perfectly reasonable possibility. He'd imagined, when he first felt that chakra flare up, that the Kyuubi might overcome Naruto and rampage across the land again or possibly just kill Sasuke. He imagined them both dead or so badly injured that he'd have to choose who to save. When he was feeling optimistic, which wasn't often during that frantic journey, he'd allowed himself to think he might reach them and find they'd worked it out and they were already turning around to head back. Still, in all the scenarios he'd dreamed up, not one had featured his students making out like a couple of randy teenagers while they bled all over the damn place and each other. Though, in retrospect, maybe it should have. After all, he'd always had the feeling that dealing with his team as they went through puberty was going to be the absolute worst.

Already late to the party, and completely unwilling to have to talk with either of them about sexual harassment in the work place, he stepped back to the edge of the tree line. From there he could keep a reasonably close eye on them while still allowing them to figure out whatever it was they thought they were doing. If it were two more normal, well-adjusted boys he supposed he might just assume they were making up in the time-honored tradition of gay fiction everywhere. Unfortunately, with these two, he wasn't even sure they weren't actually still fighting and had simply been so badly injured at this point that they had been reduced to trying to bite each other to death. Nope. Whatever this was, he wanted no part in it until he knew what was actually happening.

"Come home, just come _home_ ," Naruto panted into Sasuke's ear, minutes or hours later, as Sasuke lay against him. Every breath hurt, but he wouldn't let him go. He'd never let him go.

"I can't," Sasuke replied, his voice almost a sob.

"I'll help you get stronger, I'll do whatever it takes to help you beat him, kill him, whatever you need to do. Just come home. We'll figure it out, believe me. That's a promise."

 ** _World #87. Eliminated._**

 _World #85_

Sasuke takes the blow meant for him and passes out into something that too closely resembles death.

Naruto loses himself in his rage.

 _...Divergence Point..._

 _World #136_

The sound of the wild cheering of the crowd is enough to keep him on his feet all on its own even when he kind of feels a little bit like falling down. He really hopes Hinata saw that match, not just because he was able to beat him, but also because of the other stuff too.

He wants to stay and watch Sasuke's match because he knows that it's coming up next, but he also... he also kind of wants to check on Neji. Not that he's worried or anything. Neji might be kind of a jerk, but he's tough and he's sure he didn't hurt him that badly. He's just... still kind of maybe a little concerned because he can't see any of the Hyuugas in the stands anymore, Hinata's dad is gone definitely, and he's pretty sure that Neji wasn't supposed to show him that seal or tell him that story like he did.

 _...Divergence Point..._

 _World #137_

He finds Hinata lingering in the hall outside the Med room, as fidgety and nervous as ever though he couldn't really blame her for that. "You saw the match?" He asks, stopping and leaning against the wall beside her.

She nods quickly, "Yes, I... um. Thank you," she mumbles those words and if he weren't getting pretty good at picking up on her mumbles he probably wouldn't have heard them at all. Still her expression says a lot more than her words about how unsure she is about being here. Maybe she's nervous about her welcome and if she is he doesn't blame her. Whatever she might have caught and understood about what happened between him and Neji in the arena wasn't like some magic band-aid that would just fix the rift between them in an instant. If anything it had probably made things even worse for her, seeing Neji like that, laid bare like that, especially if she hadn't really understood about the branch house thing. And he really doubted she had, at least not everything. She was way too nice a person to have just been okay with all that bullshit.

She probably wasn't even sure what to say to him or if she should say anything at all. He could understand that feeling. Sometimes he couldn't find the words to say what he really meant to Sakura or Sasuke or even Iruka sometimes. He was better in situations like this when they were both pushed to the brink. It was like a light came on in his head that said 'hey, you know this, you understand this, this is familiar' or sometimes just 'this is simple' when a moment before everything had seemed impossible and like he'd never be able to find common ground. Fights were just... easier. He really wished he could just have all his conversations in the middle of a really good fight.

"My father's in there," Hinata murmured, her fingers twitching and twisting restlessly against one another.

And he really hadn't expected that.

"Do you know what's going on? He isn't going to punish him is he?" His voice was a growl that had Hinata flinching a bit and it made him feel kind of bad, but not bad enough to walk back the implied threat.

"I don't think so, they..."

The door opened and they guy from the stands, who had to be Hinata's dad, came out. His face was so blank that Naruto couldn't tell at all what had happened in the room from looking at him, though Hinata's dad did raise his eyebrows when he saw them standing there loitering outside the room.

"Come Hinata," he said after a moment, giving Naruto only the most cursory of glances before continuing on his way down the hall, clearly expecting Hinata to just follow him.

Naruto frowned and stepped out into the middle of hall so that Hinata's dad either had to stop or run into him. The dimissal was kind of irritating, but not as much as the expectation that HInata would just go along with him when she'd so obviously been waiting there to see her cousin. "Hey! She's been waiting to see him, you know. Don't just tell her to go. Don't you thnk you've already made things difficult enough for them as it is?"

Hinata turns beet red and looks down at her feet, taking in deep heaving breaths as she mumbles something into her shirt as her fingers continue their nervous battle.

"Hinata," Her Dad says and his voice is flat, but not harsh like Naruto had half-expected it might be.

She mumbled something else into her chest before stiffening and raising her head all at once, her face still red and maybe her lip was even trembling a little, but she still looked her Dad straight in the face. Her voice was clear and hardly even shook at all when she said, "I want to see how Neji is doing."

"I'm fine," Neji commented from where he's leaning against the doorframe. His smile isn't anything like the smirk Naruto is used to seeing on his face. It's softer, gentler, like maybe he's given himself permission to be the sort of person who smiles sometimes. It's a good look on him. His forehead is covered again by his hitai-ate and while his words are for Hinata, it's Naruto that he's looking at. Like he's some kind of puzzle that he doesn't yet know the shape of, something he can't yet quite begin to understand.

Naruto isn't sure exactly how to react to a look like that so he just smiles back at him, "Glad I didn't hurt you too bad."

Neji snorts and Naruto gets the distinct impression that Neji might actually be rolling his eyes at him though it's impossible to tell with his white on white eyes.

 ** _Noted. World #137. Ignore for now._**

 _World #138_

Neji is alone by the time he gets downstairs and finds the right room. He looks a little startled when Naruto busts in on him and he immediately feels like maybe he's intruding, like maybe he should have just gone up in the stands and hung out with Shikamaru and waited for Sasuke's match to start after all. Then Neji's expression settles into something like a smile and it kind of reminds him of the way Hinata smiles sometimes when she doesn't think anyone is watching. It's a really nice sort of smile.

"Hey," he manages, still feeling kind of stupid for having been worried in the first place. Obviously Neji is fine if he's able to smile like that, but he thinks he ought to at least ask and make sure. "So, you didn't get in trouble?"

"No," Neji replies, turning his gaze back to the window. His voice is quiet, deep and kind of thoughtful, "I... feel better than I have in a long time. I suppose I have you to thank for that."

Naruto feels his face growing warm; he's never been great with gratitude. Not a lot of people thank him for things and even though Neji didn't actually say it straight out, it feels like that's what he meant. "Sure," he replied, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "I'll really find a way to change things, you know. It's a promise."

Neji glanced back at him and he's still wearing that funny little half-smile, "I need to fight it in my own way as well."

"Well, yeah," Naruto replies, because that much is obvious. "But, you know, you shouldn't take it out on Hinata. She's really trying."

Neji sighed and if Naruto thought he had any shame at all, and he's really not sure he does, he'd have thought Neji seemed kind of embarrassed. "I realize that. It was... childish to strike out at an easy target. She is no more responsible for what this than I am," he touched a hand to his bare forehead, to the blue lines of the curse seal.

"Is there a way to remove it?"

"No."

"Then I guess we're gonna have to find one, huh? That'll be the first thing. When I'm Hokage, I can make them stop, but until then... we should find a way to remove it. I'll bet Hinata would help."

He's never spent much time with Hinata and what time he's spent with Neji has mostly been spent fighting, but he'd never thought those white and white eyes could be as expressive as they were. Just now Neji looked shocked, maybe even scandalized as if Naruto had shown him his Sexy no Jutsu or something rather than just suggesting what he thought was a perfectly reasonable first step. It's kind of a good look on him, actually, and Naruto grins, reaching out to clap Neji on the shoulder. "Okay! That's what we're gonna do! I'll let Hinata know when I see her. I gotta go right now though, I don't wanna miss Sasuke's match. Feel better!"

He calls the last over his shoulder as he dashes out of the room with a spring in his step, leaving a gap-mouthed Neji staring after him, still at a loss for a response.

 ** _Noted. World #138. Ignore for now._**

 _World #155_

Sasuke is gone.

The first thing Naruto does when he wakes up is apologize to Sakura. She promises next time they'll go after Sasuke together and Obaa-chan tells them that they've got about three years before Orochimaru can steal Sasuke's body. When Obaa-chan and Shikamaru have gone and only Sakura is left, fidgeting with the flowers on the table by his bed like she wants to go but can't find an excuse, he gives her an out by asking her to send a letter for him.

He isn't sure if it's really the best thing to do, but it's the first thing that occurs to him. So he tells her what he wants to say and she promises to deliver the message and flees. Of course, no one had actually bothered to tell him that Gaara and his siblings were in the village. That they'd helped in some of the battles the others had faced. So, when he wakes up the next morning to find Gaara sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed, watching him sleep like some sort of creep, he promptly shrieks and falls out of bed.

"Seriously, you couldn't just wake me up like a normal person?" Naruto groaned from his place on the floor.

Gaara shrugged, leaning over a little for a clearer view, but otherwise unmoved by Naruto's exasperation, "You invited me."

"Well... yeah, but, you know, not in the 'come creep on me while I'm sleeping' way."

Gaara stared blank-faced at him for a long moment and Naruto began to realize that for all that he felt close to Gaara because of the things they had in common, they'd never actually spoken much outside of a fight. It was probably dumb to assume that Gaara had any idea what was normal and what wasn't. He sighed and picked himself up off the floor with a grimace, his wounds were well on their way to healed, but it still hurt when he moved too fast... or fell on his ass on a cold concrete floor. "Okay, sorry, thanks for coming."

And all he got in return was a nod.

He was beginning to think this might have been a mistake, but it wasn't as if he had a ton of other people he could ask or anything. Gaara was literally the only other Jinchuriki he knew and though he kind of wanted to see about maybe finding and talking to others... that kind of depended a lot on whether he could convince Gaara to come along and then convince Baa-san that his great idea actually was a completely great idea.

"So, I was wondering. What are you doing for the next couple years?"

 ** _Noted. World #88. Ignore for now._**

 _World #286_

There is a desperation to this pale boy who stands in his way that he doesn't begin to understand.

But he falters, Naruto isn't sure why or what causes it, but he does and Naruto takes advantage of that stumble to hit him as hard as he can, hard enough that he hits the ground and doesn't get back up. And Naruto is standing over him breathing hard, feeling a little bit like he's gotten really lucky, with the Kyuubi's energy whipping around him as he tries to get a handle on his rampaging emotions. He needs to go and he needs to go now if he's going to catch up with Sasuke.

Lee arrives just as he's about to leave, eager to go with him, eager to help.

"Actually, can you… can you take _him_ back to the village? I mean I know he's an enemy, but he probably knows a lot about the curse seal thing and that kind of stuff." He gestures to the pale boy sprawled on the ground. It's part inspiration and part desperation.

Lee smiled and gave him a thumbs up, "Of course! You can rely on me!"

Lee hefts the surprisingly heavy body of Naruto's enemy over his shoulder and runs full out for the village as Naruto turns and runs full out after Sasuke.

He's wasted too much time and by the time he arrives at the Valley of the End, Sasuke is nowhere to be found.

 ** _Noted. World #286. Ignore for now._**

 _World #287_

Lee takes over the fight with Kaguya Kimimaro, giving him a chance to escape and run after Sasuke.

He catches up.

They fight.

It doesn't end well.

He awakens briefly as Kakashi carries him back to the village. Sasuke's absence is like a wound that will never heal.

When Jiraiya tells him to come with him, to train with him, he goes. He has time, after all, time to become stronger, time to save Sasuke from himself.

 _ **Noted. World #287. Ignore for now.**_

 ** _-ooo-_**

NOTES:

 _Extensive (or, well, hopefully extensive enough) notes about story structure can be found at the version of this story up on Archive of Our Own (Link in my Profile for the Curious). Also feel free to PM me if you have a specific question. As always, comments are very much appreciated, but never required._


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